|
Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours > Family history
Genealogist Keith Gregson takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour
of quirky family stories and strange ancestors rooted out by
amateur and professional family historians. Each lively entry tells
the story behind each discovery and then offers a brief insight
into how the researcher found and then followed up their leads,
revealing a range of chance encounters and the detective qualities
required of a family historian. For example, one researcher
discovered that his great-great-grandfather, as a child, was
carried across the main street of West Hartlepool on the back of
the famous tightrope walker Blondin. The Victorian newspaper report
said that the rope had been tied between two chimney pots. Research
into the author's own family revealed that one of his
nineteenth-century ancestors lost his leg in a Midlands coal-mining
accident, and that the amputated leg was buried in the local
cemetery - to be joined by the rest of him on his final demise. A
Viking in the Family is full of similar unexpected discoveries in
the branches of family trees.
WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY
FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2018 A SUNDAY TIMES PAPERBACK OF
THE YEAR 2019 'A masterpiece of history and memoir' Evening
Standard 'Superb. This is a necessary book - painful, harrowing,
tragic, but also uplifting' The Times
__________________________________________________ Little Lien
wasn't taken from her Jewish parents in the Hague - she was given
away in the hope that she might be saved. Hidden and raised by a
foster family in the provinces during the Nazi occupation, she
survived the war only to find that her real parents had not. Much
later, she fell out with her foster family, and Bart van Es - the
grandson of Lien's foster parents - knew he needed to find out why.
His account of tracing Lien and telling her story is a searing
exploration of two lives and two families. It is a story about love
and misunderstanding and about the ways that our most painful
experiences - so crucial in defining us - can also be redefined.
___________________________________________________ 'Luminous,
elegant, haunting - I read it straight through' Philippe Sands,
author of East West Street 'Deeply moving. Writes with an almost
Sebaldian simplicity and understatement' Guardian 'Sensational and
gripping . . . shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of
our time' Judges of the Costa Book of the Year 2018
Almost all of us have a tradesman or craftsman - a butcher, baker
or candlestick maker - somewhere in our ancestry, and Adele Emm's
handbook is the perfect guide to finding out about them - about
their lives, their work and the world they lived in. She introduces
the many trades and crafts, looks at their practices and long
traditions, and identifies and explains the many sources you can go
to in order to discover more about them and their families.
Chapters cover the guilds, the merchants, shopkeepers, builders,
smiths and metalworkers, cordwainers and shoemakers, tailors and
dressmakers, coopers, wheelwrights and carriage-makers, and a long
list of other trades and crafts. The training and apprenticeships
of individuals who worked in these trades and crafts are described,
as are their skills and working conditions and the genealogical
resources that preserve their history and give an insight into
their lives. A chapter covers the general sources that researchers
can turn to - the National Archives, the census, newspapers, wills,
and websites - and gives advice on how to use them.Adele Emm's
introduction will be fascinating reading for anyone who is
researching the social or family history of trades and crafts.
The author is a journalist descendant of three generations of
eminent lawyers, who made the surname famous-perhaps especially Sir
Henry Curtis-Bennett, KC. She could get no further than the early
18th century so turned her attention to the distaff side with
rewarding results. "A wealth of illustrations, photographs and
family trees and a bibliography add interest to the lively and
entertaining text." Family Tree Magazine
As a child, all Aatish Taseer ever had of his father was his
photograph in a browning silver frame. Raised by his Sikh mother in
Delhi, his father, a Pakistani Muslim, remained a distant figure.
It was a fractured upbringing which left Aatish with many questions
about his own identity. Stranger to History is the story of the
journey Aatish made to try to understand what it means to be Muslim
in the twenty-first century. Starting from Istanbul, Islam's once
greatest city, he travels to Mecca, its most holy, and then home
through Iran and Pakistan. Ending in Lahore, at his estranged
father's home, on the night Benazir Bhutto was killed, it is also
the story of Aatish's own divided family over the past fifty years.
Family history should reveal more than facts and dates, lists of
names and places - it should bring ancestors alive in the context
of their times and the surroundings they knew - and research into
local history records is one of the most rewarding ways of gaining
this kind of insight into their world. That is why Jonathan Oates's
detailed introduction to these records is such a useful tool for
anyone who is trying to piece together a portrait of family members
from the past. In a series of concise and informative chapters he
looks at the origins and importance of local history from the
sixteenth century onwards and at the principal archives - national
and local, those kept by government, councils, boroughs, museums,
parishes, schools and clubs. He also explains how books,
photographs and other illustrations, newspapers, maps, directories,
and a range of other resources can be accessed and interpreted and
how they can help to fill a gap in your knowledge.As well as
describing how these records were compiled, he highlights their
limitations and the possible pitfalls of using them, and he
suggests how they can be combined to build up a picture of an
individual, a family and the place and time in which they lived.
William Cavendish, the father of the first Earl, dissolved
monasteries for Henry VIII. Bess, his second wife, was
gaoler-companion to Mary Queen of Scots during her long
imprisonment in England. Arbella Stuart, their granddaughter, was a
heartbeat away from the throne of England and their grandson, the
Lord General of the North, fought to save the crown for Charles I.
With the help of previously unpublished material from the
Chatsworth archives, The Devonshires reveals how the dynasty made
and lost fortunes, fought and fornicated, built great houses,
patronised the arts and pioneered the railways, made great
scientific discoveries, and, in the end, came to terms with
changing times.
In the 1920s there were over a million coalminers working in over
3000 collieries across Great Britain, and the industry was one of
the most important and powerful in British history. It dominated
the lives of generations of individuals, their families and
communities, and its legacy is still with us today - many of us
have a coalmining ancestor. Yet family historians often have
problems in researching their mining forebears. Locating the
relevant records, finding the sites of the pits, and understanding
the work involved and its historical background can be perplexing.
That is why Brian Elliott's concise, authoritative and practical
handbook will be so useful, for it guides researchers through these
obstacles and opens up the broad range of sources they can go to in
order to get a vivid insight into the lives and experiences of
coalminers in the past. His overview of the coalmining history -
and the case studies and research tips he provides - will make his
book rewarding reading for anyone looking for a general
introduction to this major aspect of Britain's industrial heritage.
His directory of regional and national sources and his commentary
on them will make this guide an essential tool for family
historians searching for an ancestor who worked in coalmining
underground, on the pit top or just lived in a mining community.
Now that lightouse automation has been completed, what of the
service and dedication to duty that was unfailingly provided by
keepers, their associates and their families? This book records the
memories of Harold Hall who entered permanent service with Trinity
House in 1922 and served for 44 years. It also details the service
of his ancestors and to complete the picture his daughter,
Patricia, recounts her own experiences of this way of life. The end
result is a fascinating account of three families connected by
marriage, the Hall and Darling families - the well-known Grace
Darling being the great, great, great-aunt of the author!
The chapters in this book explore Middleton Hall, five clerics
including another alleged murder, a new life in Preston, Thomas and
Mary Alice Helmn and five of their nine siblings, Thomas and Emma's
eight children, and much more.
When Jim Body joined Great Northern Railway in 1916, he could never
have imagined that it would become 'the family business', with both
his son Geoff and his grandson Ian taking to the rails. Through the
eyes of three generations of Bodys, the rail industry changed
beyond recognition, going through two world wars, grouping,
nationalisation, the end of steam and privatisation before ending
up as the industry we know today. With tales that include being
suspected of spying, dealing with dramatic flooding, and the first
Glastonbury Festival, Three Generations of Railwaymen is a rare
behind-the-scenes look at one family's life and experiences in the
railway industry.
If you want to find out about Lancashire s history, and
particularly if you have family links to the area and your
ancestors lived or worked in the county, then this is the ideal
book for you. As well as helping you to trace when and where your
ancestors were born, married and died, it gives you an insight into
the world they knew and a chance to explore their lives at work and
at home.Sue Wilkes s accessible and informative handbook outlines
Lancashire s history and describes the origins of its major
industries - cotton, coal, transport, engineering, shipbuilding and
others. She looks at the stories of important Lancashire families
such as the Stanleys, Peels and Egertons, and famous entrepreneurs
such as Richard Arkwright, in order to illustrate aspects of
Lancashire life and to show how the many sources available for
family and local history research can be used. Relevant documents,
specialist archives and libraries, background reading and other
sources are recommended throughout this practical book. Also
included is a directory of Lancashire archives, libraries and
academic repositories, as well as databases of family history
societies, useful genealogy websites, and places to visit which
bring Lancashire s past to life. Sue Wilkes s book is the essential
companion for anyone who wants to discover their Lancashire roots.
REVIEWS ...an essential companion... identifies what records to
look at, why, what indexes may exist and where they will be
located.FGS Forum"
In Lives Between the Lines, Michael Vatikiotis traces the journey
of his Greek and Italian forebears from Tuscany, Crete, Hydra and
Rhodes, as they made their way to Egypt and the coast of Palestine
in search of opportunity. In the process, he reveals a period where
the Middle East was a place of ethnic and cultural harmony - where
Arabs and Jews rubbed shoulders in bazaars and teashops,
intermarried and shared family history. While lines were eventually
drawn and people, including Vatikiotis's family, found themselves
caught between clashing faiths, contested identities and violent
conflict, this intimate and sweeping memoir is a paean to
tolerance, offering a nuanced understanding of the lost Levant.
This genealogy is a study in the old world as well as the new.
Extensive references have been given, countless books have been
consulted, nearly all procured from New England Historical and
Genealogical Society, and to "Colonial Families," compiled by the
New York Historical Society. The author depended on printed
records, and when authorities differed, a conclusion was reached by
critical comparison and the weighing of evidence. Many family
records never printed before have been used. Mrs. Rixford, a noted
genealogist and author of several works, including "Three Hundred
Colonial Ancestors and War Service," has traced from Cerdic, first
of the West Saxon Kings, 495, through Alfred the Great, 849, Robert
Bruce, King of Scotland, King Henry I, II and III, King Edward I,
II and III, also many other royal lines through Charlemagne, Louis
I, Earls of Warren, Dukes of Normandy, Royal House of Portugal,
House of Capet, Counts of Anjou, Kings of Jerusalem, and many other
royal families too numerous to name. She has also included several
Mayflower lines connected to all members of the Vermont Society of
Mayflower Descendants, who are direct descendants of these lines.
Those with ancestry to the Earls of Warren have been connected up
to the royal families. The book also includes the ancestry of Gen.
George Washington, the first President of the United States, traced
back 1,000 years to the Earl of Orkney Isles, the founder of the
Washington family. It also contains the ancestry of Gen. Nathaniel
Greene, who ranked next in military fame to George Washington.
Other families addressed in this volume include: Aquitaine,
Angouleme, Anjoy, Baskerville, Beauchamp, Bray, Bulkeley, Capet,
Castille, Cheney, James Chilton, Francis Cooke, Courtenay, Rixford,
De Vere, Farleigh-Hungerford, Devereux, Douglas, Drake, Eaton,
Ferrers, Fitz-Alan, Flanders, Graves, Greene, Gregory, Hainault,
Heydon, Johnson, William Latham, Lawrence (John and Isaac), Lisle,
Marshall, Milbourne, Moore, Mowbray, Phelps, Port, Province,
Rogers, Russell, Seymour, De Spineto, Smith and Georges, Sir Henry
Smith, Stanley, Throckmorton, Tailefer, Vermandois, Warren,
Washburn, Washington, Winnington (Wynnington), Gov. Thomas Welles,
Whitney, William the Conqueror, Winslow, and Wyne.
|
You may like...
Our Family
Sharad Ganesh Pradhan
Paperback
R478
Discovery Miles 4 780
|